Month: April 2007

The Animal Rescue Site is having trouble getting enough daily clicks to meet their quota for free food donations. It takes seconds to go to their site or HOT LINKS here & click on “FUND FOOD FOR ANIMALS.” It’s free. Corp. sponsors monitor the # of daily visits & donate food in exchange for advertising. Pls tell friends about this!

“Women sometimes ask me how I can live with such a monster… It’s easy. Watch.” – JUNE NEWTON

We went to the new CAA on Avenue of the Stars in Century City to see a screening of June Newton’s documentary, HELMUT BY JUNE. The CAA building is huge & very cold–all hard surfaces & sharp-edged. Give me the classic old MCA building (designed by Paul Williams) on Crescent Dr. & little Santa Monica in Beverly Hills any day.
The screening was hosted by director Brett Ratner. He produced the documentary & seems interesting because he has a sense of Hollywood history. Ratner grew up in Miami around Al Malnik, the mysterious lawyer/businessman who, allegedly, had deep ties to Meyer Lansky & now the Saudi royals!!!! The quick loan business, Title Loans of America, is part of the portfolio of this 73-year-old Miami humanitarian. In LA, Brett is close to Robert Evans, the controversial former studio head. Through Bob Evans he met the Newtons. People like Michael Chow, whom I consider a genius architect/designer, the lovely Lisa Love, Courtney Love (NO RELATION), Jacqui Getty etc., were there–but not June.
The film features June’s videos of Helmut–around the house, etc. & on many of the iconic nude shoots. I found it fascinating. A superb portrait of a monumental artist as seen by his wife of 56 yrs!!! You see what he thought & how he did it. June always takes her film back to the source–Helmut Newton‘s still images.
Honest, raw, provocative, loving. It’s from HBO & will premiere April 30 on Cinemax.

Some heartbreaking revelations are coming to light about credit card & payday loan providers that have been charging members of the US military unbelievable amounts of interest. I heard a local congressman say the highest rate was AN EXTRAORDINARY 451%!!! That’s so beyond-beyond it would make a mob shylock blush!
The soldiers are usually green young guys w/ not much education–FACING THE VERY REAL POSSIBILITY OF GETTING KILLED OR MAIMED. Many of the recruits have new families & MONEY IS A HUGE ISSUE!!! Because the richest country in the world didn’t provide it, some have been saddled w/ extra financial burden after choosing to buy their own body armor!!!! Rather than shylocks from the local bar, these predatory lenders are brand name financial institutions. Naive soldiers are offered tons of credit because they are considered good risks: they have steady income+default on loans could result in court martial. It all looks rosy in the beginning: Why not a plasma TV & a boob job for the wife? Could this be better than Vegas?

They soon find out the money isn’t free & some can’t be deployed because of their debt. Some have ended up bankrupt, even homeless! Bush recently made the grand gesture of capping the interest rate for servicemen at a still exorbitant 36%!!! Not exactly prime. Check out James Scurlock‘s movie, MAXED OUT.

Back to bread & circuses of the late Anna Nicole Smith’s baby’s televised paternity case. Will we all sleep better knowing Larry Birkhead is Dannielynn’s daddy? Did you notice Birkhead looks exactly like her late son, Daniel–while Howard K. Stern bears a striking resemblance to the other Howard Stern, King of All Media??? My bet is these two will join forces in the fight to get BIG $$$$ from the J. Howard Marshall estate (the octogenarian Texan billionaire she married early on). Stay tuned….

1. Went to Doug Christmas’s Ace Gallery to see Robert Wilson: Voom Portraits. I have never been a fan of his theatrical pieces, but I liked this very much.At first I thought they were photographs, but on closer inspection I saw the works were videos. Wilson utilized plasma screens [Voom] which have incredible definition and color. Not unlike the Warhol “screen tests” where the participants were positioned in front of a 16mm camera and told not to move or blink for several minutes, Wilson’s seemingly static images breath, blink, and some, after time, make big movements. Many pieces are influenced by images of photographers like Helmut Newton, George Hurrell, and one is a direct interpretation of Steichen‘s famous photo of Garbo holding her head in her arms.

Wilson videotaped trendy stars and aging society women but the very best are the animals! They can’t be directed and their impulses are always perfect. PANTHER, PORCUPINE, SNOW OWL & TOADS. The scale of the gallery, which is in an old Deco skyscraper on the Miracle Mile, and the sheer number of works is impressive. It runs through April.

2. Barbara Allen is a person I have know for a long time, although I never knew her well. She was a tall coltish beauty w/ an exotic Eurasian look. Always very nice, she seemed somewhat fragile. When she began a serious affair w/ Phillip Niarchos, the young (then) heir to a Greek mega-fortune (currently well-known as father of Stavros Niarchos III, beau of Paris Hilton) Barbara became the quintessential Seventies jet-setter. Phillip & Barbara broke up and she later married a wealthy, much older man, Henryk de Kwiatkowski. For no obvious reason Barbara de Kwiatkowska recently agreed to be profiled in the NY Observer. This is the result–Barbara of Beekman Place.